


I’m Leaving Here (I’m Long Away)

by ImpishTubist



Series: come let the new child play [1]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angst, Blasphemy, Genderfluid Character, Implied Sexual Content, Kid Fic, Nonbinary Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-07
Updated: 2019-10-07
Packaged: 2020-10-26 19:03:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,245
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20747201
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ImpishTubist/pseuds/ImpishTubist
Summary: Crowley had no idea where to go from here. It wasn't as though "what to do if you accidentally create an offspring with your mortal enemy" was covered in the demon handbook.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> There’s heavy implication in this fic that Jesus and Crowley fucked, so like, best to bug out now if that’s not your thing. Fic title and series title both come from Queen’s “Long Away”.

** _33 A.D._ **

It took hours for Him to die.

Crowley didn't leave the hill in all that time.

She eventually drifted away from Aziraphale to stand on the outskirts of the crowd, unobtrusive and silent, watching Christ as He drew each and every labored, painful breath. Aziraphale didn't stay for it all, slipped away here and there to perform the odd blessing or miracle--grateful for the distraction, no matter how brief. Each time he returned, Crowley was still standing in the same spot. Bearing witness, Aziraphale thought. Once or twice, he swore that Christ lifted His head and met her eyes in the crowd, and something close to peace crossed His anguished features before pain overtook Him again.

When it was over, and the bodies had been taken away, he went over to her. Crowley acknowledged his presence with a tilt of her head, and Aziraphale said, "Drink?"

"Thought you'd never ask." She tucked a few strands of flame-red hair back under her scarf, which had fallen loose in the breeze, and said, "Lead the way." 

***

Somewhere between their second and third jug of wine, Crowley's features shifted, and his robes became what Aziraphale recognized as his male-presenting wardrobe. 

"You said you showed Him all the kingdoms of the world."

"Yes." Crowley drained his glass, and then refilled it with a thought. 

"What...exactly did you mean by that?"

Crowley gave him a look. "Do you truly want to know?"

Aziraphale was fairly certain that he didn't, but he opened his mouth and said, "Yes" anyway. 

Crowley's eyes flicked away. He took a long swallow from his glass and said, "I knew Him, in a way that no one else did or ever will. And that's all I've got to say on the topic, angel. Draw your own conclusions."

Aziraphale had been doing that for hours now, and didn’t like where those conclusions led. It wasn’t that a demon had been consorting with the Son of God--though truthfully, that should have bothered him more than it did. It was that it had been _Crowley_, who felt too much all at once, who had been inconsolable for nearly a century after the Ark, and now he had witnessed his--_lover?_\--suffocate on a cross. Murdered, at the hands of the humans he seemed inordinately fond of, for a demon. Murdered, and he hadn’t been able to do a thing to stop it.

“More wine,” Aziraphale muttered, reaching for the jug.

Things got a bit fuzzy after that. They consumed at least another jug of wine in the tavern, and bought another for the walk back to the village. It was half gone by the time they stumbled into Aziraphale’s rooms, but he simply miracled up some more.

“Gabriel’s gonna have some questions for you,” Crowley said. He was sprawled across the cushions on the floor, somehow managing to hog almost all of them. “When he sees that little miracle in Heaven’s ledger.” 

“I can handle Gabriel,” Aziraphale huffed, because he _could_. He _outranked_ the archangel, for G--for _Someone's_ sake. It was just that he didn’t care much for rank, or title, or soldiering. So he was assigned to Earth, to keep a careful eye on humanity, and in return Heaven mostly left him alone.

“I’m sure you could, angel,” Crowley said, and it didn’t sound like sarcasm. Aziraphale frowned. 

“Why do you call me that?”

“What?”

“Angel.” Aziraphale snagged the two remaining cushions for himself and settled carefully on the floor, goblet of wine balanced carefully in one hand. 

“S’what you are.” 

“I have a _name_, you know.” 

“I do.” Crowley fixed him with a stare, and Aziraphale felt himself pinned in place at its intensity. “Do you want me to stop?”

_No_, he didn’t. The thought was entirely unbearable, for reasons Aziraphale couldn’t articulate, so he settled for draining half his glass of wine instead.

“Do whatever you like, fiend,” he murmured. “I shan’t stop you.”

When he chanced a glance at Crowley, he saw that the demon’s eyes were glinting.

“Oh, _really_?"

“Er…” 

“You won’t stop me?” Crowley drained his glass and tossed the goblet aside. It clattered across the floor. He pushed himself up on his elbows and looked up at Aziraphale through his lashes. Aziraphale felt his face heat uncomfortably. 

“Stop it.”

“Stop what, _ angel_? I’m not doing anything.”

“Yes, you _ are_,” Aziraphale sputtered. “You’re--you’re _ tempting_.” 

“Am I?” Crowley’s eyes were wide, and glowed a burnished gold in the candlelight. 

Aziraphale swallowed hard. 

“Yes.” The treacherous word forced its way out of his throat.

“Is it working?” Crowley purred, and Aziraphale refused to dignify that question with an answer. Crowley’s robes slipped, baring a freckled shoulder. “Would you like to do something about it?”

Oh, _ Heaven_. This wasn’t how he’d intended the evening to go, not at all. 

_ Isn’t it? _ That mutinous voice was back. _ Isn’t this what you’ve wanted since the Garden, what you’ve denied yourself for four thousand years? _

“Yes,” he whispered.

Crowley arched a delicate eyebrow. Backlit by the candles, his hair seemed to be aflame.

“Then come here,” he said softly. “Come here, and _ do _something about it.” 

***

The sun was hot, relentless, and _ unbearable_. 

Aziraphale staved off consciousness for as long as he could, but eventually the room grew warm enough that his human corporation started to _ sweat _, and that was simply unacceptable. He cracked open an eye--

\--and immediately shut it again.

No. No. _ No_. 

Aziraphale opened his eyes--both of them, this time--and stared at his bedfellow. It was unmistakably Crowley--he’d know that hair, that jawline, that muscled arm anywhere. Crowley, who was lying on his side, his back to Aziraphale, _ naked_. 

He reached out a hand, tentatively, and brushed his fingertips over Crowley’s shoulder. 

Crowley didn’t move, didn’t so much as _ twitch _. But he was solid and sun-warmed beneath Aziraphale’s hand, and decidedly real. This wasn’t a hallucination. 

And then Aziraphale looked down at himself, taking in his own naked state, the Effort he had willed into being last night…

_ Oh, God. _

They’d had _ sex_. There was no denying that, especially not with the crusted evidence of it on his belly and in--well, other more uncomfortable places. Sex the way that humans did it. 

Sex with a _ demon_. 

A wail rent the air. Aziraphale thought for a wild moment that it had come from his own throat. Crowley jerked awake, and was halfway to his feet before he realized where he was. 

“_Fuck."_ Crowley collapsed back onto the cushions, throwing an arm over his eyes. He was so close, Aziraphale could smell the very human sweat that clung to his body, and the odor _ did things _to him. His cock twitched with mild interest, for one, and he tried to will the blood back into his head. 

“I’ll say,” he said, both his voice and his throat dry, and Crowley startled. He lifted his arm and turned his head to peer at Aziraphale.

“Wha--”

“Hello, dear,” Aziraphale said flatly. “Sleep well?”

“No.”

“Neither did I. And whose fault was that?”

“Yours, if I’m remembering right.” Crowley grimaced. “_Fuck_. Did I _ really _let you bugger me three times?”

“_Three_?” Aziraphale only remembered the first two.

“Maybe I buggered you that last time. _ Heaven_, your neighbors are annoying, can’t you get them to shut up?”

“I don’t have neighbors.” 

Crowley went still. 

“Okay,” he said slowly, “then what’s making that sound?”

They both sat up. The room was a disaster--cushions thrown everywhere, a goblet upturned and wine staining the floor, candles knocked over--and there, laying atop their discarded robes from the night before, was a _ baby _. 

"Crowley," Aziraphale said slowly. "What is...that?"

"It's a baby, angel, what the fuck does it look like?" Crowley vanished from his side. He went over to the infant, scooping it up and nestling it in the crook of his elbow. The baby's cries ceased almost at once. 

"I mean, what is a baby doing _here_?"

"The way I understand it, that's what happens when you have sex," Crowley said dryly. Aziraphale sputtered, momentarily shoving aside the thought of_ oh Christ Almighty I did--I had--and with a demon! _

"But we're not human!" 

"It also doesn't happen overnight, calm down." The bundle in his arms started to fuss again, and Crowley bounced it gently. "Someone probably abandoned it." 

"By putting it in my room? Without either of us noticing? This place is warded, Crowley, how would they even have gotten in?"

"I don't know, angel, do you have any better ideas?" Crowley snapped. "Humans are _ weird_. Who knows why they do half the things they do."

"We should check it out." Aziraphale waved vaguely at the blankets the baby was wrapped in.

"What, in case its parents wrote their names on it?"

"Do you have any better ideas?" Aziraphale threw back at him. 

Crowley scowled, but shrugged and started to peel away the blankets.

"Shh, I know," he murmured when the baby started to fuss again as the air hit it. "This is all the mean angel's fault, you remember that." 

And then he went very still. 

"Crowley?" 

“Shit,” Crowley muttered. “Oh--angel, we are _ fucked_.” 

“How can we possibly be--” Aziraphale caught sight of the baby’s skin over Crowley’s shoulder and choked on his words. 

_ An angel _. Gold flecked the baby’s skin, swirled around its legs and across its stomach, delicate embellishments that marked the child as holy. Markings that every angel, even the lowliest of them, bore. But there was something else, too, a brand on its thigh, no larger than Aziraphale’s thumb.

A snake. The same mark that branded Crowley, the one that he kept hidden under long, flowing hair. The mark of his Fall, the brand that he would carry with him forever.

“I don’t understand,” Aziraphale said blankly, even as his mind forcibly connected the dots for him. “I don’t--”

“_It__’sss oursss_.” Crowley’s hiss was a frightful thing, and Aziraphale reeled back. “_It’sss fucking oursss, Azzziraphale _.” 

“It couldn’t possibly be--there’s no way--” 

“Feel them.” Crowley thrust the baby at him. The poor thing started to wail again. “_Feel them_, Aziraphale. Reach out with your powers. Feel their aura, and tell me it isn’t true.” 

Aziraphale laid a hand on the baby’s head. They were warm to the touch--_as warm as Crowley, _his treacherous brain pointed out helpfully--and calmed the moment Aziraphale touched them. Aziraphale closed his eyes, and reached out.

It slammed into him in a confusing wave--the acrid scent of sulfur and brimstone, the sterility of Heaven, sunbeams, starlight, damp soil after a heavy rain, dust, fresh bread, _ love _, so much love he nearly choked on it, love that sank its hooks into him and dragged him under, love so deep he might drown in it--

Aziraphale yanked his hand away and backed up several steps. Crowley cupped a hand around the infant’s head, holding them to his chest, eyeing Aziraphale warily.

“That’s not possible,” Aziraphale breathed. “It--it _ can’t _be. Angels don’t reproduce--”

“Where did the Nephilim come from, then?” Crowley snapped, and Aziraphale winced. 

“_Demons _ don’t reproduce either, you _ Fall_,” he said waspishly. “This is--it’s a _ trick_\--”

“A trick played by who? Which of our sides would benefit from it?”

_ Their sides_. Aziraphale went weak at the knees, and put a hand on the wall for support. Heaven would have his head for this. Four millennia of glowing performance reviews, of having clawed his way to the top, of having proved himself over and over and _ over _ so that he could have the privilege of being left alone. So that he would never, _ ever _Fall. All of that, gone in an instant, all because--

_ You had _ sex _ with a demon_, his mind reminded him. _ All Crawly had to do was ask questions before he Fell. What do you suppose Heaven will do to _you? 

He could still salvage this. It would be far, far worse for him--for _ both _ of them--if Heaven found out about this child on its own. But if Aziraphale admitted his mistake, his transgression, if he presented the child to his superiors and let them deal with it, he might get out of this alive. More importantly, _ Crowley _ might escape intact. The Almighty had been relatively docile since the Ark, the murder of Her Son notwithstanding, but She would most assuredly bring down the full weight of her wrath on them both should this secret be discovered. 

He needed to take this child, and hand them over to Heaven. It was the only way. 

“May I?”

He tried to keep his voice neutral as he held out his arms, but Crowley narrowed his eyes. 

“What for?” he asked suspiciously.

“Well--I mean, if the child _ is _ours, don’t you think I have a right to hold them?” Aziraphale tried to sound indignant, and obviously failed at it. Crowley took a step back.

“No,” he said. “That’s not what you want at all.”

“Crowley--”

“You’re going to kidnap them,” he accused. “You’re going to take them to Heaven!” 

“You’re being ridiculous, just let me--”

“Look me in the eyes and tell me you won’t.” Crowley glowered at him. “Give me your word, Aziraphale. _ I will not take them to Heaven_. Ssssay it!” 

Aziraphale said nothing. He _ couldn’t. _It was a lie, and a blatant one at that. He’d gotten by over the centuries with the occasional modified truth here and there, or an omission of some pertinent bit of information, but he couldn’t _ lie _. Not about something of this magnitude. Not to Crowley.

“Fucking knew it,” Crowley said darkly, putting another foot of space between them. When Aziraphale tried to follow, Crowley flung out a hand, and a table toppled over into his path. “I thought you were different, _ angel. _I truly did. Serves me right, doesn’t it?”

“Crowley, please--”

A _ crack _rent the air, and Crowley vanished with the babe, leaving behind only the faint stench of sulfur.

***

Crowley had no idea where on Earth he was. 

His mind had been a whirl when he drew on the well of power within himself and transported them out of Aziraphale’s rooms. He hadn’t had a clear destination in mind, except for _ away away get away _. He had landed somewhere warm, at least. Somewhere tropical, given the salt-laden breeze. It was late afternoon here--he must be half a world away from Aziraphale right now.

He tried to pretend that it didn’t _ hurt_.

The infant gurgled, drawing his attention to them. Crowley traced their upper lip with a finger. They broke into a bright smile, sky-blue eyes dancing. _ Angel-blue_, Crowley's mind whispered, and he quashed the thought. No use going down that road--whatever Aziraphale felt for him, whatever they _ might _ have had, he couldn’t indulge that now. They had created a child together--_somehow, _inexplicably, a real child--and Aziraphale had been a heartbeat away from taking them to Heaven. 

“What do we do now, hm?” Crowley murmured. He brushed a thumb over the baby’s downy cheek.

He had no idea where to go from here. It wasn't as though "what to do if you accidentally create an offspring with your mortal enemy" was covered in the demon handbook. The only thing he _ did _ know for certain was that he couldn’t allow Heaven _ or _Hell to ever get their hands on this child.

Or Aziraphale.

He tore his eyes from the baby’s face finally and took in his surroundings. He’d landed on the edge of a village. It wouldn’t take much effort to integrate into the community. He’d become fairly good at that over the years. Humans were wondrous, and beautiful, and so fucking _ gullible _. He’d played a multitude of roles in his time among them, and it didn’t take much to explain away the eyes. 

But it probably wouldn’t do to show up in the village with an infant while in his current form. He closed his eyes and dug deep within that well of energy to change his form, back to the one he had inhabited while watching Christ perish on the cross. The form that He had touched with reverence, the one He had worshipped, the one that He had marked with lips and teeth and tongue.

Crowley pushed the memories away. There would be time to grieve that particular loss later. Her most immediate concern was the child.

“We’ve got our work cut out for us, little one.” Crowley cupped the baby’s head. “Hiding from Heaven, Hell, _ and _your father. What do you think of our chances?”

The baby waved a fist in the air, giggling. Crowley held out her hand, let the babe grasp one of her fingers in a surprisingly-tight grip. Despite everything, she felt a smile touch her lips.

“I’m the Serpent of Eden,” she whispered. “And no one is _ ever _ going to harm you. I promise you that, my own. _ No one_.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so this fic was supposed to be a one-shot, but this part functioned better as a chapter than a separate fic. Fic #2 will be up later this week! 
> 
> While this series is meant to be woven into canon, I’m taking some liberties. Most of the cold open from episode 3 is still canon, but I’m ignoring the Rome bit for purposes of this fic. Thanks again to Alston for being an amazing human and beta :) 
> 
> **New content warnings for this chapter:** lots of hand-waving when it comes to religious stuff, non-graphic deaths of children at the end of the chapter. 

** _111 A.D. _ **

Aziraphale didn’t see Crowley again for almost eight decades. 

Not that he’d been looking for the demon, of course. He wasn’t convinced, after all, that the child had _ anything _ to do with him. It was holy, certainly, but there were thousands of angels in Heaven and any one of them was capable of creating...offspring. He assumed, at least. No angels had been created since before the Earth was formed, and all of them had sprung from the firmament fully-formed, but angels _ had _mated with humans before. It stood to reason that they could create offspring on their own. He assumed that the appearance of the baby was a trick of some kind...or a test. A test that he assumed he had passed, because he hadn’t Fallen in the wake of Crowley departing with the child.

He _ hoped _he had passed, at least. 

That wasn’t to say he _ never _ thought about Crowley and the child. He wondered occasionally where Crowley had got off to--he wasn’t used to such silence from his adversary. They didn’t see each other often, but he ran into Crowley’s work on a regular basis. They were both field agents for their respective sides. Crowley wiled, and Aziraphale thwarted, and that was the way of things. But he had done a lot less thwarting these past several decades, and had found himself largely unopposed as he carried out Heaven’s orders. It was...worrying. Not that he _ should _have been worried about Crowley. He was a demon, after all, and if he’d been recalled to Hell--or worse--then that should have been a relief. 

But Aziraphale knew that the field agent Hell sent in his place would be far worse than Crowley, and he rather liked having an adversary who preferred to spend an afternoon drinking with him than performing cruel acts on helpless humans.

And as far as he could tell, Hell _ hadn’t _sent a new field agent in Crowley’s place, which Aziraphale could only assume meant that Crowley was still alive and on Earth somewhere. Had the child been a test for Crowley, too? Had he passed, somehow? If he was still alive and on Earth, why hadn’t Aziraphale heard from him in almost a century? 

_ He’s hiding from you _ , his mind whispered. _ He doesn’t want you to find him. He doesn’t want you to know where he is. _

_ He doesn’t want you to find the baby _.

It was by complete accident, then, that one day he rounded a corner in Rome and slammed into Crowley. The force of it knocked Crowley back several steps, until Aziraphale found that he had--quite unintentionally--backed Crowley up against a stone wall. 

“Aziraphale.” Crowley’s voice was flat and cold. “What are you doing here?”

“I’ve been looking for you.” In his surprise, that was what slipped out--not the fact that he was here on orders from Heaven, not the fact that he had several blessings to perform in the city, and _ certainly _not the fact that he had been wondering for decades what had happened to Crowley.

“Yes, I know, for the past seventy-eight yearssss.” Crowley only hissed when he was particularly stressed, Aziraphale knew, and his tongue flicked out, tasting Aziraphale’s intentions. He had his back against the wall, both literally and figuratively. His lips pulled back, baring too-sharp teeth, and Aziraphale was reminded sharply of a cornered animal. “What do you want?”

“I-I think you can guess.” 

“Then you can fuck right off.” 

“Crowley, I only want--”

“You want what?” Crowley demanded. “You want me to take you to the baby, so you can meet them. So you can hold them. And then you’ll distract me, and the moment my back is turned, you’re going to take them to Heaven.”

Aziraphale had never been good at lying; he blamed it on his angelic roots. He wasn’t _ supposed _to lie. He wasn’t even good at lying to himself, let alone to another being.

“Yes,” he said, and Crowley snarled. Aziraphale threw up his hands, placating--or a defense. “Crowley, please just listen. This is something that’s _ never _happened before. This...being, it’s an unknown. It could be dangerous. Heaven needs to know--”

“_ Our child _ ,” Crowley hissed, “is not an _ it _ , and they’re not dangerous! And you have no right, no _ fucking _ right, to steal them from me. What do you think is going to happen when you get them to Heaven? That fucking _ Gabriel _ will welcome them with open arms? That Michael will offer to babysit? That Uriel will teach them to walk, and talk, and _ fly _?”

“I don’t understand why you think that might be so far out of the question--”

“_ Listen to yourself _ . How can you be so clever and so _ stupid _ at the same time? Heaven doesn’t even give a _ shit _ about _ you _ . Why do you think they would care about your _ demonic offspring _ ? They’re going to kill the child, you know it, and that’s if they’re being _ merciful. _”

Crowley spat the last word. 

“I was cast out because I asked a few questions, because I wanted to know _ why _ . She cast me out without a second thought, condemned me to an eternity of damnation for the audacity of questioning Her great _ fucking _ plan. And now I’ve created a child with one of her soldiers. Not just any soldier, but the Guardian of the Eastern Gate. What do you think She’s going to do to the baby when she finds out, if she doesn’t know about them already? What do you think She’s going to do to _ you _?” 

Aziraphale said nothing. What _ was _there to say? Crowley wasn’t exactly wrong about any of it--he’d asked questions, he’d hung out with the wrong crowd, and he’d never even been given a chance. No warning, no notice, just a long Fall into sulfur for his transgressions. Transgressions Aziraphale couldn’t exactly understand, not that he would ever admit that out loud, not even under threat of Hellfire.

He finally took a step back, stopped crowding Crowley against the wall. The tight line of Crowley’s shoulders relaxed fractionally, and he smoothed a hand down the front of his robes.

“Have you named them?” Aziraphale asked. 

“No, I’ve been calling them _ baby _for the past eight decades,” Crowley snapped. “Of course I named them.”

“May I know it?”

“Names are powerful things,” Crowley said after a moment. “No, Aziraphale. I can’t tell you that.” 

“You said baby,” Aziraphale said. “It’s been almost eighty years.”

Crowley huffed. “Yeah, they’re still a baby. Growing, but it’s slow. They aren’t quite ready to crawl, even, though I think we’re getting close…”

He trailed off, color draining out of his face, as though he was afraid he’d said too much. 

“They’re not a human child,” Crowley said, composing himself. “I don’t know why you expected they’d age like one.”

He brushed past Aziraphale, and Aziraphale let him go. He ran a hand through his hair, trying to gather his scattered thoughts.

“Angel.”

Aziraphale turned. “Yes?”

“They look like you,” Crowley said. And then Aziraphale blinked, and he was gone. 

***

Aziraphale wished that he could blame the existence of paperwork on Hell, but unfortunately, bureaucracy was one of Heaven's inventions. Weekly reports, annual reviews, company meetings--angels had taken it upon themselves to create what amounted to a massive headache for Aziraphale. He understood that it was needed, of course, and knew that his dislike for it was a moral failing on his own part. After all, the Almighty wouldn't have allowed it to come into being if She didn't think it was Good and Necessary, would She?

_ What about the baby, then? _ his mind whispered. _ If She knows everything, and if She sees all, and if everything is part of the Ineffable Plan, surely the baby was known. Surely She _ planned _ for them to be created. She's probably wondering why you haven't turned the child over to Heaven. Perhaps you failed the test after all, and your Fall is yet to come. _

Aziraphale shook his head, as though that might rid him of the nasty feeling of unease. He'd successfully managed to put all thoughts of Crowley and the baby out of his mind for almost a year now, ever since he'd run into Crowley in the market in Rome. But the thoughts had been creeping back in recent days, whispers in the back of his mind. Wondering how the baby was doing, if they were crawling yet, if they had Crowley's eyes. Wondering what Crowley was up to, how he managed to shirk his duties without Hell catching on. 

Wondering what Crowley had meant, when he said the baby looked like Aziraphale.

“Aziraphale, are you listening?”

He grimaced inwardly, but summoned up a sunny smile for Gabriel. “Yes, of course. Keep up the blessings, dial it back a bit when it comes to miracles, stay ahead of the adversary, and report on my progress once every Earth year.” 

“And?” Gabriel prompted.

Aziraphale blinked at him. “And?”

“Your number of smitings is abysmal.” Gabriel flicked through his file. “In fact, it’s practically nonexistent.”

“Oh,” Aziraphale said. “Well, yes. That’s good, isn’t it?”

Gabriel laughed. It sounded more like a donkey’s bray. “Of course it isn’t. We have quotas to meet, Aziraphale. Your department isn’t pulling its weight. I need you to get your numbers up, or we’ll have to seriously consider a replacement field agent.” 

“But--wouldn’t you rather the humans find their way toward Good?” Aziraphale asked. “Why smite them when I can simply steer them in the right direction?”

“Because you have a _ quota _ to fulfill, Aziraphale, weren’t you listening? Not every human you run into is going to be _ good _, that’s not how things work. Otherwise, what would be the point of Heaven and Hell?” Gabriel gave another one of those overenthusiastic laughs. Aziraphale could only force his mouth to twitch upward in an approximation of a smile. And then Gabriel snapped his fingers. “I’ll get an angel to show you how it’s done, how’s that sound? Let’s see, who’s free this decade....”

Gabriel ran his finger down a list on his desk, and then said, “Ah, Anael would be the perfect angel for the job. He’s on Earth as we speak, in fact. Why don’t you go join him?”

He snapped his fingers again before Aziraphale could say anything, vanishing him back to Earth. 

***

“Gabriel tells me you need help learning how to smite humans,” Anael said by way of greeting. Aziraphale picked himself up out of the dirt and brushed off his robes, irritated. He hated when Gabriel did that, and he had _ just _cleaned these robes, too. The human way, because he’d been told off last month for using too many frivolous miracles. 

“Er, I really don’t think that’s necessary--”

“You’re in luck,” Anael said, talking over him. He pointed at a nearby collection of huts. “Got an entire village here that needs to go.”

“A--a _ whole _village?” Aziraphale stammered. “You’re telling me that none of them are beyond redemption?”

“Oh, sure they are,” Anael said breezily. “The kids are innocent. Children always are, you know? None of them are _ born _evil. But their parents have committed grave sins. The children have to pay the price, too, you know that.”

“Do I,” Aziraphale said faintly, but of course he did. He’d been there in Mesopotamia, after all, when God decided to drown everyone in the area except for Noah’s family. It hadn’t mattered that most of the humans in the region had been souls bound for Heaven. It hadn’t mattered that the children would never grow up, would never lead lives of their own. They had died anyway, save for the thirteen Crowley had smuggled onto the Ark at the last moment.

“There are a lot of different ways to go about it,” Anael went on. “God’s fond of water, as you know. For me, I prefer fire.” 

“Fire,” Aziraphale repeated dumbly.

“Well, it’s what they’re going to experience for the rest of eternity, once they die,” Anael said with a shrug. “It seems poetic. Watch.”

He briskly sketched a sigil in the air with his fingers, and then breathed on it. It glowed faintly for a moment before disappearing from view. A moment later, Aziraphale watched as five thatched roofs burst into flame. 

“Fire’s great, because the work basically does itself once you get it going,” Anael said proudly. The fire was spreading quickly, aided by a sharp breeze. “Some villagers will try to escape, of course, and find themselves impeded. No one’s getting out of that alive. Efficient, isn’t it?”

“Efficient,” Aziraphale echoed. His fingers twitched, but he could do nothing, not without drawing someone’s attention. Heaven would know that he had interfered, and they would see to it that any villagers who had survived--who Aziraphale had saved--would die eventually. It was all part of the plan, and it didn’t matter that he didn’t understand the _ point _of it all. All that mattered was seeing Her word carried out.

The breeze carried with it smoke and screams. The back of Aziraphale’s throat was soon coated with ashes, and his nostrils burned with the acrid stench of the burning village. He stayed rooted to the spot, couldn’t move, couldn’t speak, could barely even _ think _. Every building was alight now, half of them already reduced to nothing. He wished he could close his ears to the tragedy as easily as he could his eyes, but while he could blot out the sight of the burning village, he couldn’t escape the screams. The children’s were particularly distinctive.

This was the fate that awaited the baby. No, not _ the _ baby-- _ his _ baby. His child. Their child. Destined to be punished for the transgression of their parents. Would it be fire, Aziraphale wondered, or drowning? A Fall? _ Could _a child Fall if one of their parents was a demon? Would it be fast, and painless? Would Gabriel draw it out, forcing the child to suffer because of what it couldn’t control? 

Would Crowley be forced to watch, the way Aziraphale was now?

By dawn, the village was nothing more than smoldering embers. Aziraphale’s legs had given out long ago; he knelt in the dirt. At some point in the night, Anael had grown bored of the spectacle and left. Aziraphale could do nothing but stare. 

_ The baby, _ his mind whispered to him. _ The baby the baby the baby the baby _

Aziraphale stumbled to his feet. He had to find Crowley.

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first story in an AU ‘verse that will span the centuries and carry us through book/TV show canon, all based around the premise that two hereditary enemies created a secret child together thousands of years ago and have to figure out how to co-parent said child while being, well, enemies. Many thanks to Alston, my partner-in-crime and source of endless encouragement. This wouldn’t exist without you <3


End file.
